


I am good, I am grounded

by sandyk



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Voyeurism, mention of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 11:03:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14424042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Amy's just banging out dudes, or imagine a season 3 where Amy was happy and had a lot of sex.





	I am good, I am grounded

**Author's Note:**

> Yes all my titles are from the national. I made a bet with a friend, okay??? This one from I need my girl. Not mine, no profit garnered. Amy Hempel's the Harvest is available for free online, Google it, it's great. This was almost entirely written before 3.20 aired so if you think I'm snarking about developments there, well, I wish but I can't see into the future that much.

Amy woke up and it was August and Adam had moved out a month ago. Amy had a part time job working at one of her cousin's restaurants, she worked the cash register. She was basically making a third of what she made at Cloud Nine. She really hoped the store opened back up soon. 

Emma was with her dad. Amy thought about all the times in the last few years she'd longed for an empty house all to herself. Now she definitely had it. Just her in the house. She turned on the TV she'd moved into the bedroom. Now that there was no Adam to be distracted by it, she liked having the TV without moving. 

She sat up and took off her t-shirt and underwear. It was her house. No one was there. She could be naked. She couldn't remember the last time she'd been casually naked. Just hanging around, no clothes on. If Chris Meloni could see through the TV screen, he'd be looking right up her vagina. Which would be kind of awesome. She'd do Chris Meloni. She spread her legs. Now Mariska Hargitay had a great view of Amy. She'd do Mariska, too. 

Once she'd owned a vibrator. A cheap one. She had no idea where it was. She didn't want to know. If she was going to use a vibrator she deserved, like, top of the line. At least not cheap. She was single and only thirty three. She got distracted by her phone and stopped thinking about sex, mostly. She read twitter. She checked on Scott Wolf on instagram. Then she was back to thinking about sex. 

She put on a robe before going downstairs to make herself dinner. This was totally her life now. Swinging single and casually naked. 

Amy didn't want to do anything. She was deathly afraid and super sad. Also she was wanted to date a hundred new guys. Absolute strangers. Gals, too. Maybe she'd finally have a threesome. She was going to get a tattoo. She was going to get a tattoo on her butt. 

She googled tattoo parlors in St. Louis. She found two she liked, and started following three artists on instagram. She could be afraid, or she could get a tattoo on her ass cheek. Probably her left one. She was picturing it. A tree curling up her thigh and all the leaves and stuff on her butt. How expensive could it be? It wasn't like she could take college courses. She had some money. 

She was responsible to no one. She put on some clothes and got in her car. Maybe she was supposed to schedule consultations. Maybe she could just walk in and get started on it. She'd just gotten a new credit card. 

Amy still hadn't started the car. She skimmed Yelp and looked for the best place. Two were open right now and had great artists. Well, great according to their websites and instagrams. You probably didn't put the really shitty tattoos on display. 

She made a decision. She drove to her first choice. The artist she wanted most of all, as she'd decided in the last hour, had a cancellation. 

Four hours later she was trying to drive home balanced on one butt cheek. She stopped by the other Cloud Nine and bought all the lotion and ointment she was supposed to use. 

The next day, as she was doing her cleaning and ointment application, she looked at her butt and hip and thigh and felt so stupid. Then she cocked her hip and thought she looked sexy. She had a fucking amazing ass. 

She was going to be spending the next three weeks in thong panties and lazy dresses. That's what her sister called them, simple little sundresses you just threw on and didn't think about it. 

The next morning, she was lying on her stomach showing Chris and Mariska her tattoo. She wondered, idly, who'd be the first to see it in person.

It was not going to be Emma. She didn't even tell Emma. 

It took three weeks for the tattoo to heal completely. It looked hot. She was hot. Amy looked at herself naked in the mirror. Fuck fear. She was super hot. It was time to be the woman she missed out on being, someone who dated around. She could totally do that.

She needed to get out. She called Cheyenne and accepted her invitation to go by her apartment and hang out with the dogs and the baby. 

Amy hugged Cheyenne and they said hi to each other. Cheyenne immediately put a cranky Harmonica in Amy's arms. "Okay, I'll take her. How are you doing?"

"I'm doing great," Cheyenne said. "I get to spend all day with Harmonica and that's cool. She's pretty good company. She has such bad taste in music, though."

"How are you paying for everything?"

"Oh, Bo got a job," Cheyenne said. "Like a real job. It's perfect for him. He's like, the dj for a music camp."

"That's a job?"

"Yeah, I know," Cheyenne said. "I thought maybe he was just dealing drugs or robbing some place, but then I went down there and it's for real. I've even seen his pay stubs."

"Well, that's great. And unexpected," Amy said. Harmonica had calmed down immensely and fallen asleep in Amy's arms. She wanted another baby. She wanted two more, probably. And now she could have them. In two or three years. "I got a tattoo."

"No, you didn't," Cheyenne said. "Did you?"

Amy shifted and pulled up her skirt enough on the side that Cheyenne could see the base of the tree on the side of her thigh. Cheyenne said, "No way. When did you do that?"

"Three weeks ago. Oh my God, it was so painful."

"How big is it?" 

"It's all over my butt, half my butt," Amy said. 

"Oh my God, how much sex have you been having? Are you just banging out dudes?"

Amy laughed. "I've barely been out. But, um, I hope to meet someone soon. Not a forever somebody but definitely a one-night somebody."

"I hear you," Cheyenne said, grinning. "You should call Jonah. He'd totally do you."

"Jonah's not a one-night somebody," Amy said. She remembered their kiss and tried not to squirm. 

"Fine," Cheyenne said. "Maybe Marcus?"

"Ew, ew, ew," Amy said. "I think I'm going to avoid everyone at work."

The next day she decided to go to a bar. She drove from one to another until she found one playing live music. Live music was a good distraction. Plus, she wasn't the only non-white person there, another plus.

It was sort of good live music, even if it wasn't Amy's thing exactly. It was an all girl band, and sort of folky, sort of punk. Amy looked closer at the crowd after she ordered one beer. She'd managed to pick a lesbian bar at random. She settled in near the edge of the bar. 

"Amy Sosa?" 

Amy turned and saw a pretty Asian woman her age, a familiar looking crooked tooth -- Amy said, "Gina? From high school, we went to the same high school."

"Yeah," Gina said. "Last I heard you were with Adam and having a baby, right?"

"Yup," Amy said. "A great daughter Emma, but Adam and I broke up, we're divorced."

"And you're here," Gina said. "Wow. I remember when you were at that party -"

"Oh, yeah, that party," Amy said, laughing. She had no idea which party. 

"You were making out with Helena Newsky in the bedroom," Gina said.

"Oh, that party, now I know which one you're talking about," Amy said, blushing a little. "Yeah. She was really pretty."

"Oh, I always thought you were prettier," Gina said. "Still are."

"You saw Helena recently? I haven't seen her in so long. She went to college in Nebraska, right? I thought she moved there," Amy said. Then she thought for a second. "Are you hitting on me? Sorry, I'm just back in this whole dating thing. But have you seen Helena? Oh, wait, you're pretty, too. How have you been?"

Gina laughed. "Yes, I'm hitting on you. I have Helena friended on Facebook. She's married to some guy, I think she pretends all the sex with women she had in high school never happened. I've been fine. I went to college in Oklahoma and then moved back in with my parents for a while. Now I have my own place in Soulard. I work at an insurance company. It's so boring."

"I work at Cloud 9, I'm coming up on fifteen years at Cloud 9, so I bet I win," Amy said. "But it's not always boring. Our whole store was destroyed by the tornado."

"Oh, that Cloud 9?" 

Two beers later they were making out furiously in one of the stalls in the bathroom. Amy arched her back, pushing herself down on Gina's perfect thin fingers. Amy was less skilled, since it had been a while, but she was enthusiastic with her hand between Gina's legs. Gina seemed to like it. Amy said, "Wait, let's -"

She turned so her back was to Gina and pulled down her underwear and skirt. Gina said, "I love your tattoo," as she brought her hand back up into Amy's vagina. Most of her hand, Amy wasn't exactly ready for fisting. Amy reached back and kneaded Gina's pretty firm butt. 

Amy came as Gina reached under her shirt and started pulling, just a little, at Amy's nipple. The combination of the two actions was like liquid joy shooting all through her, down to her toes. Amy breathed heavily for a minute and turned around again. "Your turn," she said. 

Amy pulled her underwear and skirt back up and squatted in front of Gina. There was no way she was letting any part of her besides her shoes touch the floor of this place. Gina said, "Oh, oh, good."

Amy remembered about this part, she loved this part. She'd missed the taste of girls and how pretty they were for the last fifteen years. Gina was loud when she came. Amy stood up and they kissed some more before cleaning up and stumbling out of the stall. "Seriously," one of the women by the mirror said, "some of us actually want to pee."

"Sorry," Amy said. She didn't sound very sincere, she knew. She was in way too good a mood to give a crap. 

They walked out together and Amy said, "I don't mean to, I'm not really ready for a relationship, I don't mean to be a tease, if that's the right word --"

Gina laughed again. "It's fine, totally fine. Honestly, I've had all my high school fantasies fulfilled and then some tonight, I don't want anything ruined by whatever comes after."

"I was a fantasy?" Amy blushed again.

"Duh," Gina said. "You and Helena were so hot together."

"That's so nice," Amy said. "Thank you. You were great at that, by the way. You're, um, you're great at sex."

Gina said, "I'm putting it on my resume. Thanks." They kissed again and Gina went one way and Amy went got in her car. 

The next day Amy was being casually naked on her bed, she thought she should call Jonah. She hadn't talked to him in six weeks. She texted him a simple 'what's up?' and waited. 

After work that day, she realized he hadn't texted her back. That was fucked up. She texted him again. 'Where are you?'

She didn't have an answer when she woke up. She decided to drive to his apartment. She'd driven him home before. 

His apartment was completely gone. Leveled. But if it happened during the tornado, that meant Jonah was okay, because he'd been with her. Not like Gina had been with her, but they'd been together. She'd seen him alive. So he was fine, clearly. Just moved. 

She asked someone in the coffee shop two doors down. Jonah used to go there. People always remembered Jonah, he was very memorable. The barista said, "Everyone from the apartment is in, um, trailers. FEMA trailers. It's over that way, you know, that parking lot by the school by the old clock store."

"Oh, okay, I know that," Amy said. She actually did.

She drove over there. Naturally she couldn't tell which FEMA trailer was Jonah's. She was just wondering around and finally she found his car parked in front of one of the trailers. Which had to be Jonah's. She went up and knocked on the door. "Jonah?"

He opened the door. He looked like hell frozen over. "Hi," he said. "Wow, what are you doing here? I was going to answer your text."

"Texts, plural," Amy said. "Have you been here since the tornado? All six weeks?"

"Yup," Jonah said. He stepped out of the trailer and sat down on his steps. "I've been here. How are you doing? How are you, Amy?"

"I'm better than you," Amy said. "I have a job. Super part time. Um, Adam and I are getting divorced. He's already moved out. We've been sharing custody of Emma. She's about to start high school."

"Teenager," Jonah said. "Wow."

"Hey, can I come in? Just to verify that you're mostly alive," Amy said. 

He reluctantly opened the door. The trailer was clean, like someone cleaned it every single day. It smelled like pine-sol which was weird because Jonah smelled like someone who hadn't showered in three days. "You should shower," Amy said.

"There's a guy, he likes to take a bath and he uses up a lot of the water. But I guess maybe. I'll try," Jonah said. 

While he cleaned up, Amy sat on Jonah's bed. She looked around and felt unbelievably anxious. There was something hanging over this place, like Jonah was so miserable all the time, he couldn't clean it out of the floors and ceilings. 

Jonah needed to get out of this place. He came out of the shower, wet with a towel around his waist. Low on his waist. She said, "You have a tattoo, too. As well."

"Oh, yeah," Jonah looked down at his hip. It was a complicated and compact design. She couldn't make sense of it. "It's, it was back in college. It's an overlay, one thing over another."

"I just got a tattoo." She was sitting cross-legged on his bed. She said, "Maybe I'll show you."

"The thing is, I forgot to bring my clothes into the bathroom. So I should --"

"Or we could have sex," she said. "Just once. We can bang out that weird sexual vibe we have by having sex. And then we can be friends. And you'll be energized enough to get the hell out of this place."

"That's, wow, okay, that's, um. Interesting thought," Jonah said. "We have sex and then we're just friends?"

"Well, who knows what happens in the future? Right now, like, I'm taking my life back. Or making up for lost time. I don't know. Don't worry, I already had my first sex since Adam, so no pressure," Amy said. 

"That's makes sense, sure," Jonah said. "If there's no pressure."

He smiled and he was beautiful. Glenn was right about those perfect geisha features. She sat up and took off her shirt, unhooked her bra. Then she slipped out of her sweats. 

"Oh," Jonah said. "Your tattoo is really awesome."

"Drop the towel," she said, hooking her finger in the band of her thong. "Please tell me you have a condom."

"I, um, yes, they actually stock them in the trailer. Wait a sex, a second," Jonah said. He reached for something under the bed and held a single condom up. 

He was, it was such good sex. So much more than she expected and exactly what she suspected. He drew everything out and was a complete tease but in such a good way, when she finally came it was almost like she floated above the bed. He made this oddly sexy stuttering noises when he came. 

She used his awful bathroom afterwards, it was tiny and cramped. She didn't love it. She got out and started getting dressed. "You have to get a place. An actual place you pay rent on. You have the money for that, right?"

"Sure," Jonah said.

"I swear to God, if I come back here in three days and you're still here, I will never have sex with you again," Amy said. 

"But you already said we won't have sex again, we're banging it out to get over our weird sexual vibe," Jonah said. 

"And it was good, it was too good, so at some point we should do it again," Amy said. "But we won't."

"Okay, I accept your odd ultimatum," Jonah said. 

She went to another bar and had sex with a guy in his car. He worked for the Boy Scouts. Two days later, she met a guy waiting in the line for groceries, they had sex in her car. He worked for Legal Aid. 

She was, in sum, a total slut. Just banging out dudes. She liked it. She came back to work happy, her heart open. She said, "I see you have a new address," to Jonah.

"I do," he said, smiling. He seemed much less fugue state-y. 

Amy took classes, too. Just random free community courses or things she heard about. She learned she was really bad at salsa dancing but she had enthusiasm. She learned how to do a rub on meat to grill it. Adam had left his second best grill when he moved out. She took a random class called Intro to Handstands. She was not really good at that one. But she kept trying. Her instructor came over and said, "Okay, I'm going to help you a little."

"I'll take it," she said. He helped her up and she was doing it, for at least ten seconds, she did a handstand. 

"I feel, like, reborn," Amy said. "Sometimes I'm sad and lonely and I just want to die, but then I'm good. Like, I buy a cooking class at Sur La Table online."

"What class?" Jonah looked genuinely interested. 

"Last night was Chicken Basics," Amy said. She didn't tell him that after that, she drove to a bar that had salsa dancing and ended up having sex with this woman who kinda looked like the Selena. In Amy's car. 

She was having a lot of sex. She didn't really tell anyone until she started telling Dina. Dina owed her, Amy had listened to Dina's whole life of anxiety. 

"You are an equal opportunity major slut," Dina said. "I'm impressed."

"I'm just open, I'm being open to what comes."

"To who comes, inside of you," Dina said, chuckling. "I am very funny."

"Eh," Amy said. 

"How many guys and girls from here at Cloud 9?"

"No one," Amy said. "Just Jonah. Once, this summer. But I'm staying away from people at work. That's why I don't use dating apps, too afraid to have Tate pop up as my match."

"Tate wouldn't be that bad. Marcus is horrible in bed. I don't know about Jonah, was he good?"

Amy smiled. "Yes."

"Garrett's great," Dina said. 

"I've known him too long. It would be like having sex with you," Amy said. 

"You sure? I'd have sex with you, you know, if you wanted to," Dina said.

"You're hot --"

"Duh," Dina said.

"But I'm sticking with my no one from work except that one time with Jonah rule," Amy said. "Obviously, don't tell."

"My lips are sealed. Unless you want to make out," Dina said.

"No, but thank you for thinking of me," Amy said, rolling her eyes at herself as she left. 

Emma kept being a brat so Amy forced her to take learning annex courses with her. First they did two hours on basic car repair. They changed a tire and checked the oil, and looked at the engine trying to figure out what was wrong. Emma was actually smiling when they left that one. "I bet none of the girls at school know all that," Amy said.

"Yeah, plus now I know that guy Cory is a total idiot, he tried to explain that he changed the tire on his dad's car and what he said made no sense," Emma said. "I like when I know guys are idiots."

"I don't mean to sour you, but a lot of them -- they're not idiots, but a lot of us say stuff because we're insecure and we want to feel like we're special. So we say things, like we changed a tire, or we know how to skydive," Amy said. 

Their next class was interior decorating because Amy was trying to show Emma that she could clean her room and have it look nice instead living with crap just thrown around everywhere. Emma didn't love the class. Amy did, she started working on their house the minute she got home. "Up next is home repair," Amy said.

"Great," Emma said, rolling her eyes. 

Amy loved interior decorating. She took some online courses and started reading the magazines they sold at Cloud 9 on her break. Once she finished with her house, she wanted to do someone else's.

"You're not allowed anywhere near my house," Dina said. "Is this sublimated sexual repression? Have you not been getting laid all the time lately?"

"No, not at all," Amy said. "I've had sex five times in the last two weeks."

"Good for you," Dina said. "How do you do that? Do you have really low standards?"

"No," Amy said. She took out her phone and showed Dina a picture. "That's Oskar from last night."

"Wow. Is he Latino or --"

"No, his father is Black and his mother is Indian. Like the country," Amy said. 

"Okay, you're just a stud," Dina said. "I'm straight up jelly. Sorry, I was working with Cheyenne and Mateo yesterday."

So she decided to go to Jonah's apartment. She knew his new address so she just drove over to surprise him. Surprise him with her skills. 

He opened the door very tentatively. "Hey, you just, you stopped by without calling me first."

"Oh, do you have someone over?" She felt ashamed for a moment, like hitting a wall of her own enthusiasm and self-centeredness. 

"No," Jonah said. "Just, um, okay, come in." He was already the picture of shame, or something.

"This is, I would say minimalist but it feels more depressed." Jonah had a studio, it wasn't tiny. It felt bigger because there was nothing on the walls.There was barely furniture. A bed on the floor, a two shelf bookcase with no books, just cubby baskets that sold at Cloud 9, presumably with his underwear and socks. His pants were neatly folded on the top. He had one of those things on wheels with a rod on top to hang his shirts. She peeked into the bathroom and saw a plain shower curtain. He had an oven and refrigerator and a sink and a microwave. It was all absolutely spotless. She should hire Jonah to clean her house. She shook her head. "Do you actually like this?"

"I don't think about it," Jonah said. "I guess you want to change things."

"Well, I respect you lost everything you own so you want things simple. I can respect your neurosis. But you need more, Jonah. You're worth leaving your mark somewhere," Amy said.

"Are you advocating graffiti or carving my name on the wall?" Jonan smiled.

"Neither. Get in my car, we're going to get you some stuff."

Jonah shrugged and followed her to her car. He didn't really say anything until they turned off at a Target. "Come on, Target? They have nice stuff, but."

"We're not going to Target, Jonah." Amy drove past it to the Goodwill behind it. "We're going to decorate for you."

Jonah smiled again. Amy dragged him past of all the clothes to the back. "First you need something for your walls."

"I'm not taken with any of this, um, art," Jonah said, flipping through the canvasses in the bins against the wall. 

"You don't know for sure. Just keep looking in case something strikes you." Amy went to another aisle. She came back to Jonah holding up her suggestions. "What do you think?"

"Those records are probably horrible," Jonah said.

"Yeah, but the album covers are trippy. They're fun. They're hipster. It's very you. You could put them right above your plaid shirts on wheels," Amy said.

He took them from her and looked at them. "Okay," Jonah said. "But I'm downloading the music so I really know they're right. If the music doesn't work for me, they're coming down."

"Did you find one thing you liked?" She gestured at the stretch of paintings of various sizes. 

"I like this one," Jonah said, holding up a framed photo of some kind of extreme close up of a bee. 

"Okay," Amy said. "So we've got three things for your walls. Now we need a chair. Seriously, just look around and find one chair you like, that you'll actually sit in. And I will be back again."

She took the cart over to the tables and found two rather nice bedside tables. If she put them back to back, it would be like a nice solid table. Jonah was probably doing everything on his bed, eating his meals, staring at the walls and contemplating life and being really sad. She'd worked retail long enough, she had no problem getting them both in the cart. She found Jonah with his own cart into which he'd put a chair. 

"We need pillows," she said. "For that chair and your bed."

"I have pillows," he said. 

"You need more. But we're not getting them here. Let's pay for this and then we have a second stop," she said. 

Before they went to the next store, they brought his new furniture up to his studio. She set up the tables in front of the chair. Jonah hung his album covers and freaky bee thing. "See? Looks better already," Amy said. "Where are your shoes?" 

"In the cubby," Jonah said, pointing.

"Okay, whatever," she said. "Next stop."

This time they went to Walmart and bought pillows of various sizes. Then she drove him to a craft store she loved. They started going through the various shams until they had one for every pillow. "Don't buy pillows secondhand," Amy said. "The potential gross factor is incredibly high."

"Got it." 

Then Amy arranged the various pillows, some on his bed, two on his chair, and an arrangement on the floor kind of like a mutant bean bag chair. But better because it wasn't a bean bag chair. 

"This feels better, right?" She held his arm.

"It's nice, it's good," he said. "I like the way you work. It felt very personable, very me focused. Is this going to be your second career?"

"Nope, I just like doing it," Amy said. "It's like sex. Only sex is better. God, I'm about to make a joke about breaking in your bed."

"It's already broken in. I mean, I've had sex on it," Jonah said. He was blushing.

"Really? You've been keeping that on the down low," Amy said. Her stomach was unsettled. That was jealousy, she thought. 

Jonah made a wry face.

Amy said, "Oh, oh. Was it a guy? Are you secretly dating a guy?"

"It was a guy and I'm not secretly dating him or anyone. It was just sex. We hang out sometimes. Sometimes we have sex, mostly we just get coffee, me and his friends. I guess some of them are my friends now. There's a woman I have kind of the same arrangement with."

"Oh, cool, that's nice. I have a lot of sex. Mostly I don't see them again, but some of them I do. But not for sex again, it's usually just, hey, now we're friends. No more benefits," she said. 

"That's one way to meet people," he said. 

"Don't judge," Amy said. 

"I'm not," he said. "Do you want to get something to eat?"

"Yes," she said, fervently. 

They ate at a vegan restaurant Dina loved. Amy noted that and Jonah said, "I know, she told me about it. I was having barbecue and she tried to take it away from me."

"She's not usually like that," Amy said. She didn't know why she was defending Dina. 

"Yeah, she'd been having a bad day. She didn't really apologize, but the next day she didn't deduct time from me when I went to the bathroom twice," Jonah said. 

After a few home repair classes, Emma said, "We should get a better shower."

"We should," Amy said. 

It was her next project. She did a lot of reading, watched a lot of youtube tutorials. 

In the midst of planning the perfect shower, she started dating. It was weird. She found herself going on second dates and meeting up again after having sex in her car or their car. No one she wanted to introduce to Emma, but they were people. 

One night she laid in her bed, alone and put aside her laptop, closed it before she could watch one more home improvement show. She was so sad and lonely all at once. She missed Adam, as a person, as her husband who was there to come home to. She could do all these things, but she only told Dina or Jonah about them. No one ever made her dinner. She talked to herself all the time when Emma was with Adam. She wanted something more. 

She turned on her side. She didn't want it right now. She wanted to be an even better Amy before she tied herself down. Not that it had to be tied down. She didn't have to stagnate herself to be in a relationship, that was just the way it worked out with Adam. She could see herself with someone now, in her non-teenage pregnant self way, who wanted her to grow and take bunches of classes and be the better Amy. The older Amy. 

She wanted a baby. She wanted to have more kids. She'd told Jonah that once. She didn't want them with Adam. 

Amy went to church one Sunday much to her Aunt's joy. She made her Aunt even happier grabbing a few fliers about meet-ups. There was even one two days later.

She went on a date with a guy from her church, it was like Glenn's wet dream. Though it wasn't Glenn's church so maybe not. 

The guy from church liked to be tied up. He broached it very respectfully, lots of hey, only if you want to, let me know if you're not comfortable talk. But she was down to try it. 

"You want me to hit you?"

"Only if you want to," the guy said. "Consent is very important."

"But you want me to hit you," Amy said. "Okay, let's try it."

He was totally turned on by it, and Amy could get in to it. She couldn't bring herself to slap him, but she could sit heavily on his thighs, scratch at his chest, twist his nipples. He loved it all. She gave him a rough hand job and he was so close to coming. She put the condom on without any violence or roughness and then she lowered herself onto him. It was actually super hot, she was incredibly turned on. She was totally in charge. She said, "I think maybe I could slap you? Is that okay?"

"Yes, yes, please," he said.

She slapped his face twice. It was awesome. She came and he came and it was all pretty great. 

Amy looked at him, tall and white and realized in her head he looked a little like Adam. The guy was talking about best practices and BDSM and being very nice. She said, "You know, I think I was enjoying this because you look like my ex-husband. I probably shouldn't be doing this if I'm thinking of actually hurting someone."

"Good point," the guy said. 

She still read up about the scene. It was hot. She loved being in charge. Amy was suddenly thinking of Jonah. He obviously loved being beat up, it made him hard even when it was just Dina. 

Adam came by specifically to tell her he was dating Bridget, one of Emma's friend's mom. Bridget looked like a model. A perfectly lovely white model. Taller and prettier than Amy. She decided not to dwell. She said, "Did you talk to Emma already?"

"I wanted to speak to you first," Adam said. 

"Well, congratulations. Are you two moving in together?"

Adam said, "Yeah."

"Okay, then." Amy said. She just kept thinking that Adam was bouncing from her to this Bridget, she wondered how long it would even last. 

One day, she was thinking about Adam and Bridget and Emma and she managed to walk right into the guy from the beverage distributor. "Sorry, sorry," she said. 

"It's okay," he said, with a really nice smile. A great smile. 

She was definitely ready to date. 

"And he helped me install the new shower tiles," Amy said, talking to Dina in the break room. 

"Your new boyfriend?" Jonah sounded a little disturbed. "Alex?"

"Yup," she said. "I think I'm okay saying boyfriend. We've had more than a few dates, he's met Emma while we were laying the tiles. Boyfriend works."

"That's new for you," Jonah said. 

"Yes," Amy said. "Dating is new. I haven't been dating."

Jonah nodded a lot and left. 

Amy had a rough month, of course, because everything had to go badly at some point. She knew it would happen. Alex broke up with her for perfectly understandable reasons. "I get it, I do," Amy said. 

"I hear getting dumped is awful," Cheyenne said. "It's never happened to me."

Mateo said, "It's going to happen to Amy a lot more. Sweetie, you're over thirty, you have a teenager, and you've given up on your hair."

"I have not given up," Amy said. "I just stopped with the blonde."

Mateo gave her his "Guuuuuuuuurl" look. "This new look, this brown shapeless thing? It says I don't care when people look at me."

Amy sighed. Naturally, that was only the first thing. Adam had gotten his pretty girlfriend pregnant. Emma was freaking out. "She's really upset," Amy said to Jonah. She'd basically followed him home because she couldn't take her house and Emma wasn't even there. He hadn't added a single thing to his apartment since they'd been to Goodwill. But he still had all the furniture they'd bought and had up the record covers and freaky bee picture. Jonah and Amy were both sitting on his bed. "I get it, but, I have no idea what to do."

"You can't do anything except love her," Jonah said. "Sorry, that sounded stupid. My dad has a 15 year old daughter, my half-sister. It sucked when he told me. My mom barely talks to him. He basically got another woman pregnant three weeks after they separated. It wasn't even the woman he'd been cheating on my mom with."

"He's still your favorite," Amy said. "Why?"

"I said we're closer. He's more understanding of my foibles and mistakes than my mom, in a lot of ways," Jonah said. 

"I guess," Amy said. "Neither of us cheated. I mean, you and I kissed but that wasn't cheating."

"Totally," Jonah said. "But it's hard for Emma. Everything gets turned upside down and then her dad gets a new girlfriend and a new baby."

"I know," Amy said. "I know. But I can't make it right for her. I just want her to be happy."

"At this point in her life, you can only do so much," Jonah said. "Trust me."

"Ugh, let's, I can't even keep talking about this. Let's watch a documentary. You choose," Amy said.

Jonah laughed. "So you're trying to make me happy? Okay. There's a bunch I really love."

"I'm sure," Amy said. "You pick."

She took off her shoes and laid back on the bed. Jonah laid next to her. It was so boring she fell asleep after half an hour. When she woke up, it was dark outside and Netflix was still going. She felt warm and cuddled which she realized was because she was snuggling Jonah. Who had his arm around her and seemed engrossed in the different documentary that was on. It seemed to be something about Jonestown. Of course that Jonah's idea of downtime. She said, "Sorry I fell asleep."

"You missed a good one," Jonah said. 

"Are we watching a good one now? Cause it seems like it's about Jonestown," Amy said.

"That can be a good one," Jonah said. 

"If you want to be depressed and watch how awful people can be to each other," Amy said. "We already work at Cloud 9."

"There's this beautiful short story that mentions Jonestown, it's by Amy Hempel, you should read it," Jonah said. 

"We're watching this because a short story mentions it?"

"No, because it's fascinating," Jonah said. 

"You've never mentioned your little sister. Actually, all I know is that you have older brothers," Amy said. "You've met my whole family, even my awful cousins."

"Well, if my family lived in St. Louis you would have met them all, too," Jonah said. 

"So. Tell me about them."

"I have two older brothers; Gideon and Matthew. I have an older sister, or I had, her name was Lily and she died when I was three and she was five. I don't remember going to her funeral, so that's why I think of myself as having never been to a funeral. I barely remember her," Jonah said. 

"How did she die?"

"Uh, drunk driver hits school bus," Jonah said. "My younger sister is named Lucy. My dad had actually another kid with the same women, her name is Georgia. But she's only ten. So less traumatic."

"I think having your child die would be the worst thing in the world. I don't know how anyone even gets out of bed after that happens," Amy said. 

"They do," Jonah said. "Mine did. They did have three other kids to take care of. Matthew was on the same bus Lily was, he got hurt, but he got better."

"Do you have any other hidden tragedies, like, from high school or college?"

"Not really," Jonah said. "When I graduated college, I lived at home for year and, like, did internships with big charities. Human rights stuff. But none of that was my tragedy. Then my dad got me a job at Conde Nast, fact checking. So I was living in New York City. It was a pretty good job, actually, even though I got paid next to nothing but my mom sent me money, like a lot of people I worked with. Uh, then I had a nervous breakdown and after a few months in a very nice hospital that was so nice my dad had to pay for it, I moved back home and lived with my dad, his girlfriend and my sisters. I was like a housekeeper slash nanny."

"You're not great at cleaning," Amy said. 

"Not at Cloud 9, maybe," Jonah said. "But I had that house down. And my dad's girlfriend put up with me for about a year, so I was turning twenty six and my dad suggested. He made the suggestion I might try living somewhere else."

"You had an evil dad's girlfriend," Amy said.

"I think she resented me, but I was always nice to her. I don't know, she dumped my dad a few years ago. He has custody of the girls," Jonah said. "So, twenty six, my dad financed me moving to Manchester, England. Where I was once again a fact checker. Which is a job that is fast disappearing, by the way. No one cares about accuracy anymore. Then I had another nervous breakdown after a year there, came home and lived with Mom. I temped and wrote up applications to Business schools. And you know the rest."

"How did I not know you lived in England for a year?"

"It never came up," Jonah said. 

"You never brought it up," Amy said. "Are you overdue for a breakdown? It's been almost three years at Cloud 9, that's kind of a record for you."

"Maybe Cloud 9 isn't the kind of job that gives me a breakdown," Jonah said. "Also, that was mean."

"Sorry," she said. "I need you to prove this England thing to me."

Jonah sighed and got up. She missed the warmth. He came back with his laptop and turned the screen away from her. Then he turned it around and there were tons of pictures of Jonah in places that were obviously not America. He was with men, with women, clearly dating some of them and also pretty drunk in most of them. He also had a nice beard and much less Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting hair. He had luxurious curls. She said, "This facial hair is hot. This whole look is hot."

Jonah shook his head. "I need to be really drunk to pull that look off. And I don't drink like that anymore. Not since business school."

"Three nervous breakdowns, huh?"

"Are you surprised?"

"Not really," Amy said. "But you're getting help now."

"Yup," Jonah said. "Not, like, really, with shrinks or anything, but I've been, I'm on a lot of meds."

"Define a lot," Amy said.

"No," Jonah said. "You can go back to sleep, I'll wake you up in the morning."

"I don't have any clean clothes here," Amy said. 

"I'll wake you up really early in the morning," Jonah said.

She woke up in her shirt and underwear, under Jonah's comforter, still snuggling him. She just liked the way they fit. She looked for her phone which Jonah had plugged into a charger. He was such a good guy. 

He was breathing like he was awake. She said, "So you're awake, huh?"

"Just a little while," Jonah said. "It's not time for you to get up, technically."

"We could have sex," Amy said, yawning.

"If it bores you that much, I dunno," Jonah said. 

"It's just woke up yawn," Amy said. "It's not a I'm bored thing." She slid over him, her hips over his, his half hard dick against her butt. "You're not bored."

"Not with, you're not boring," he said. "Not to me."

For about five minutes everything was awkward getting off clothes and then Amy really had to pee and also Jonah had the hardest time finding the condom. Amy said, "Aren't you having sex on the regular?"

"They usually bring theirs, okay? Clark has a latex allergy so he always brings his own," Jonah said. "And Sandra has this thing where she's trying to make the female condom happen, so I don't want to be unsupportive."

Amy smiled. "How do those even work? I don't get it."

"I don't really either, but Sandra loves them. God, not the Sandra we know. This Sandra is black, not from Hawaii. Not that there aren't black people from Hawaii," Jonah said. "But anyway, we're both naked."

"We are," Amy said. She pulled him on the bed. He was, as she remembered, pretty awesome at making out. It was like how it had been with Alex, that sweet intimacy. She thought it was hot. As hot as having sex in the back of someone's car but in a different way. She liked Jonah's face, she like kissing him. 

He eased her legs apart and he already had the condom on, she'd missed that, that was a neat trick. Then he was inside her and she brought her legs around him. She closed her eyes and let herself just feel and smell and hear all of it. She could hear how wet she was. Which was probably a little gross but she loved it anyway. 

She loved coming under him, she was going to love coming on top of him. Maybe he'd want to get slapped, too. 

But after they had both showered, Jonah was suddenly quiet. As she got dressed, she watched him make coffee and then take four or five pills. That seemed like a lot. She wondered if he was really that sick. What was he like without the pills? She grimaced. It was an awful thought. Pills didn't change a person, it just made them able to function. She'd heard this over and over. She genuinely believed it. But Jonah had this whole past, he used to be super hot and not so stiff with his hair products. And a few nervous breakdowns. What was that even like? He had seemed pretty together on his first day at work. Maybe the breakdown part happened after he got off work and before he got into work. 

"Do you feel like," she said. "You always seem so cheerful at work."

"I'm cheerful," he said. "I just had great sex."

"So then how does a nervous breakdown work? Like yours. Sorry, this is offensive," she said. He poured a cup of coffee for her. 

"I don't have regular creamer," Jonah said. She opened the refrigerator and saw he had hazelnut almond milk and chocolate coconut and something else behind them. She grabbed the hazelnut. 

"My first nervous breakdown looked like a lot of adderall and coffee so I was awake for thirty five hours straight and I barely ate and I did that once a week for a month until my mom freaked out about the kind of emails I sent her when I was not sleeping. They tended not to make sense? So she came to see me and I was sleeping. Deep sleeping. It had been two days," Jonah said. 

"In Manchester I just drank a lot and took speed. It was about the same thing, awake for days, sleep for a full day, a lot of casual sex. Some gambling. I was officially out of control, according to my mom, again. I don't think she was wrong, mind you," Jonah said. 

"It almost sounds fun," Amy said. "Not really."

"Well, it's not fun, not really," Jonah said. "But I'm good now."

"Except your apartment seems more like a, it resembles a room in an institution," Amy said. "Now I get it."

"Rooms in an institution look nothing like this," Jonah said. "Trust me."

She kissed him. She was focused on that, how eager and happy he was with her. 

So they were kind of dating. She should commit. And be exclusive. But suddenly she was crazy horny again. "You don't mind, right?" She covered her face. "Of course you mind."

Jonah said, "Nah, it's fine. We're taking it super slow. I'm banging everyone I meet." He smiled at her. 

"Can I watch?"

He sort of laughed. "It's not actually everyone I meet," he said. "I'm not into the being watched thing. Can I watch you?"

She thought about it and she was surprised and appalled that she was turned on by it. What was wrong with her? That tattoo was turning her into Kinky Amy. She giggled and said, "Maybe. Um. Were you serious?"

He nodded and said, "Let's have this conversation anywhere else besides in the store. I feel like there'll be people signing up if we keep tempting fate."

So, of course, they started talking about it the minute they were in the car. "No girls, you can't watch if I'm with a girl, that's too gross."

"I agree, it feels too much like performative lesbianism," he said. 

"Well, um, I'll get to work on that?" Amy thought this was the weirdest conversation she'd ever had. Maybe not the weirdest, she remembered a long half hour with Sandra and Myrtle. But it was personally weird. Like, she was talking with her semi-boyfriend about setting up a sort of threesome where he would just be sitting there getting off watching her have sex. This was the swinging single life.

It wasn't actually that hard to find a guy, pun only sort of intended. She checked back with one of her almost dates and asked him if he wanted one last fling. Jonah had paid for a hotel room. 

"This feels super dirty," Amy said. "I wish I could tell the next person who calls me the responsible one." She was already naked. She was giving Jonah a bit of lap dance except with a lot of touching. Then Keiran knocked on the door and she put on a robe. "You still okay with this?"

"Are you?" He looked very serious. She was so turned on. 

She let Keiran in and he gave her a big hug. He reached out his hand to shake Jonah's. "Better now than after, right?"

"Yes," Jonah said. "You're very right." 

After another round of checking in on each other and everyone being totally okay, Keiran stripped and they started making out on the bed. Keiran was great at making out, he made groping fun. Amy looked to the side and watched Jonah watching her. She was so turned on. Keiran pushed himself up on and said, "This is hot."

"Yeah," was about all Amy managed. She'd really enjoyed having sex with Keiran, it was even better when it was partly a performance, something she was doing for herself and Jonah. She closed her eyes briefly the first time she came, but after that she just kept staring at Jonah. 

Keiran was very loud when he came. She thought she missed it if Jonah made a sound. "Wow," Amy said. 

Keiran carefully disengaged and took off the condom. He said, "I can use the shower, right?"

"Oh my god, yes, go ahead," Amy said, her legs still spread. She stretched her arms up and pointed her toes. 

"You're the responsible one," Jonah said, laughing. He got out of his chair and pulled Amy by her thighs so her ass was on the edge of the bed. She was about to get upset at being called responsible but then Jonah was between her legs. He was eating her out right after she'd fucked another guy, it was one more super hot thing. She felt a little fried around the edges from coming and being fucked, and Jonah's mouth and then his hand, a lot of his hand, moving in and out of her.

"Jesus," Amy said. Keiran came out of the shower and got dressed. She tried to smile at him and waved weakly. 

"This was awesome, guys, thanks for thinking of me," Keiran said. "God, that sounds stupid."

"It was awesome," Amy said before all she could do was moan. Keiran left and Amy somehow came again.

Jonah had rented the room for the whole night, so they both had time to shower and watch movies naked in bed. She said, "I think that's all I needed."

"Ever? I'd like to have sex with you again," Jonah said. He ran his hand up and down her thigh.

"I mean, no, sex with other people. Besides you. Just you. Sex with just you. I want that," Amy said. She turned on her side. "Now we both know I'm not the responsible one and I know, I know how I feel about you. Which hopefully you also feel about me."

"I do," Jonah said. "Assuming you love me. Right, that's what you were going for? If you just like me or want sex --"

"I love you, you irritating dick," Amy said.

"Who thought all it would take is you having sex with a skinny redhead while I watched," Jonah said. 

"He's a hot skinny redhead. I'm usually not into that," Amy said.

"I totally am," Jonah said. She slapped his arm and he took her hand and kissed it. 

XXX

It was August and Amy and Jonah were moving in. It was a new place. Fucking Adam had gotten a new place and it wasn't in Emma's school district so it fell to Amy to somehow find an affordable two bedroom two bath place so Emma could stay with her friends. Emma had already said she just wanted to see Adam on weekends. 

"No," Amy said as she unpacked the cutlery. "Just because you're mad at him for falling in love again and having a baby doesn't mean he's not your father who loves you. He loves you and he wants to see you more than just on the weekend. He's your dad and he's a good dad."

"He's obsessed with the stupid baby," Emma said. 

"Babies aren't stupid," Amy said. "He's a good dad, he loves his children, both of you."

"Are you pregnant, too?" Emma frowned.

"No, no and also no," Amy said. "It might happen someday, though."

"Ugh," Emma said. "I'm going to unpack my room."

"Thank God, I thought I'd have to keep talking so much more," Amy said. 

Jonah came in the kitchen to help her. "I told you, I'm keeping my bee photo. Maybe I'll get some more. Do you think it's a series?"

"We're only going to have one in this apartment," Amy said. "One creepy bee photo."

"What if, what if I convince Emma she wants one?"

"Good luck with that," Amy said. He came up behind her and slipped his hands in her sweatpants. "Emma is right upstairs."

"She makes a lot of noise when she comes downstairs," he said. He was groping her butt with his very warm hands. Amy put down all the forks and knives. "You love me," he said to her hair.

"Sometimes," Amy said. She reached behind her and pulled his hands out. "Wash your hands and unpack stuff."

"Fine, fine, fine," Jonah said. "Later."

"Later," Amy said.


End file.
